Crawford Elementary

Our school is named after Dr. Kay Teer Crawford

The First Pioneer of Dance/Drill Team

Mrs. Crawford, born Kay Waweehie Teer of Cherokee and Comanche heritage, grew up an only child in the poverty of Granger, Texas. Her parents lost their modest home in the town near Austin and moved south to Edinburg in the Rio Grande Valley, where they squatted in a succession of vacant houses. It was in Edinburg, when she was in high school, that young Kay inadvertently started what has expanded into more than 15,000 drill teams around the world. In 1930, she made the cheerleading squad, but 90 other girls did not. So she asked the principal if she could organize them into a "spirit group" -- her first drill team. Dr. Crawford brought the pep arts from obscurity to the international competition it is today.